


Entry For Not An Island

by Hukkelberg



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: ASOUE AU, An Unusual Education, Angst, Arson, Compilation, Currently Escaping Dreadful Circumstances, Epistolary, Grief/Mourning, Grumpy Journalists, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kid Jeon Jungkook, La doleur exquise, Large Fortunes, Lighthouses, M/M, Memories, No happy endings, Orphans, Pining, Please Do Not Engage, Sealess Sea Town, Spies & Secret Agents, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hukkelberg/pseuds/Hukkelberg
Summary: TO: JHFROM: SGFILE UNDER: mysterious vanishings, investigations of; town, deserted; man, preoccupied1/1cc: VFDhqA NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Dear reader, this file is merely a recompilation of bits and pieces of documents depicting the key parts of the sad story of one of our most abnegated volunteers, S., that the Archive of Our Own, despite all pleas and concern for their own safety, has agreed to host. If you find yourself intrigued by the inside of this file, I urge you to please reign in your feelings and scroll down, where you'll surely find some better stories in which Jimin has a coffee shop and a dog and does not write, instead, a 200-page book telling Seokjin why they shouldn't be together. If you, however, should choose to click on the link and open this file, you must be prepared, for in this story there is no happy ending, no happy beginning and very few happy things happen in between.





	Entry For Not An Island

**Author's Note:**

> Dearest reader,
> 
> I am writing this in the utmost hurry. It is now an extremely late hour and I fear something dangerous is upon me. Just a room over I hear a sound that is either the creaking of a bed under a turning woman or the sound of feet of an armed man. Either is a dreadful possibility. I leave with you this haphazardly put together file and ask you to review it with the kindest of hearts. I will go over it in the morning, if I am still alive. If you have just happened upon this and decide to start reading, please be aware that this compilation of documents relies heavily on the paraphrasing and or referencing of the source material and many other literary works, a phrase which here means that the author has deliberately fashioned their writing style or copied some excerpts of the Series of Unfortunate Events and other works to put together this file. The aforementioned referenced works are listed at the end of this file. I look forward to your commentary.
> 
> With all due respect,  
> H.
> 
> The world is quiet here.

“where the sea circles around the island in a star pattern – where in the center of grieving we are disoriented, skinless – where I wade into the field . . . the scent of sun on wheat – where the horses bow in & out, kick up a hoof, satisfied, perhaps, in their available bodies – where I’ve located a tiny refuge : the horizontal view from the house on stilts – where we hide the part of us that shudders, without a script – where in grief, even our own stories feel vacant – where you hear yourself telling the story & at the same time you think that’s not it, that’s really not it – where the ice plants glow in a translucent bandage across the cliff face – where impermanence is the direct expression of emptiness & emptiness is the best description of reality – where you wake from sleep to see someone leaving, but only the drape of their scarf across their back – if grief is a shining fruit”

> — Gabriel Jesolowski, from “Entry for Not An Island,” published in poets.org

TO: JH  
FROM: SG  
FILE UNDER: mysterious vanishings, investigations of; town, deserted; man, preoccupied  
1/1

cc: VFDhq

THE DAILY PUNCTILIO, SUNDAY EDITION FEBRUARY, YEAR OF THE SNAKE

KIM SOCKJIN,

FAMOUS ACTOR AND WRITER OF “MY SILENT KNOT”

BRUTALLY MURDERED IN A FIRE

“DEAR READER,

You have in your hands a copy of the BAD BEGINNING, a dreadful story about an orphan plagued by misfortune, constant persecution and the ever-present threat of arson that you surely picked up by mistake. I beg you to return this book to the shelf where it belongs, right between _Thirty Ways to Pickle Charcuterie_ and _The Honorable Book of All That Is Good and Fair_ , in the hallway of books that nobody ever reads. For this book has no happy endings and not a happy beginning and very little happy things ever happen in between.”

Seokjin Kim, _The Bad Beginning_ , “Chapter 1 ­— Briny Beach”.

DEAREST DARLING STOP

RUMOURS OF MY DEATH STOP GREATLY EXAGGERATED STOP  
PLEASE REPLY AT ONCE STOP

S to J #6

…and you cannot blame me for having had a life before you when you so staunchly refuse to leave the life you’ve chased after me. Reports from T. to P. are made with the intent of tearing apart my reputation, though I will admit that what W. said about that Wednesday morning V and I spent together is real. As real as anything ever is, which is not saying much at all. And in any case, what of N.? Will your co-star always remain your co-star, even if the play starts not with “Two households, both alike in dignity./In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,” but “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two in holy matrimony”?

Et _l’été_ et la verdure   
Ont tant humilié _ma sœur_ ,   
Que j'ai puni sur _un arbre_  
L'insolence de la Nature.

Ainsi _tu verrais_ , une nuit,   
Quand l'heure des voluptés sonne,   
Vers les trésors de ta personne,   
_Avec une étoile_ , ramper sans bruit,

Pour châtier ta chair joyeuse,   
Pour meurtrir ton sein pardonné,   
Et faire à su flanc étonné   
Une blessure large et creuse,

Et, vertigineuse douceur!   
À travers ces lèvres nouvelles,   
Plus éclatantes et plus belles,   
T'infuser _mon marmelade_ , ma sœur!

> (Scrawl) Deciphered message:

_Spring, my heart a flower: I would want, like a coward, your poison_

“The sound came from a lone phonograph, smack in the middle of a shelf. It was a lonely and rich song that resounded all over the room and it brought to mind the sign that Jungkook had seen just before entering. The school’s motto, engraved over every arch: _Memento Mori_. Remember you will die. Sitting atop a stool in between the piles of books was a man with a quizzical brow, shaped almost like a question mark, and a smile that could’ve meant anything. Jungkook didn’t know him, of course, but it was a man with whom I had been previously closely acquainted. When I inquired about the Kim orphan and his whereabouts, he gave me much the same look he was giving Jungkook now, though I have it in good faith that Jungkook did not receive the same message I did, that fateful evening in which V and I drank from the last bag of Black Cat Coffee as that very same café burned to the ground, just a few blocks away.”

Seokjin Kim _, The Austere Academy_ , “Chapter 3 — The Library.”

J. This is so yellowed. It must be old. Did he send that to J?

Y. No. There was a boy, once, when we were young. His name was Taehyung.

J. A boy? You don’t mean…

Y. What? Did you think his life ended and started with your father?

J. He writes like it.

Y. He does. But he lies. That’s how this works. Taehyung was… well, he _was_ , mostly, at a time when we were all grappling with our own constitution. Seokjin had just arrived to do his apprenticeship. I had been here ages. They got along.

J. It sounds impossible.

Y.You never live just one life in this kind of job.

THE DAILY PUNCTILIO, SUNDAY DECEMBER 4, YEAR OF THE RAT

KIM NAMJOON OF THE KIM FORTUNE

WEDS HUSBAND IN “IN” WEDDING

J to S #1

Not-yet-dear Sir,

Is this your address? I have threatened every rat alley in the vicinity trying to ascertain the validity of my recently acquired knowledge to no avail, so I have no way of knowing if this letter will ever reach you. I trust my eagle’s training, but I do not trust the bullets in the barrels of the guns of the hunters that are hunting in this hunting season. This letter will have to fly over many dog cafés and cat cafés and barren fields and fields with plenty of foliage and fields that are just mildly populated and I am afraid it might not survive the trip to that dingy office in the thirteenth floor of an identical building to the one next to it. All I can do is hope for the best, but the best, like the quick mice that scurries away from the talons of the eagle in a mildly populated field or the happiness that being adopted by the perfect family just months before they perish in a terrible fire bestows, is often much too fleeting to get a hold of.

 ~~I write to you with the purpose of inquiring after your investigation of my own life and the industriousness with which you have pursued such activities.~~ In truth, it is not really my life that I am interested in. You are already aware of my misfortunes, and myself, having just until recently lived them, am not in the mood of recapitulating them. If this letter reaches the right person, then you know what I am talking about. If it does not then, dear reader, there are twelve books out about it in your closest library.

For years, I wondered if I was ever to have a family, feeling like wood adrift not in the middle of waves unknown but at the edge of a coastal shelf, unable to seek both the vastness of the ocean and the security of shore. But then you walked in, with Father at your side, and said that I was lucky that I had been careful with my ankles for if I hadn’t my fate

MRS. ARBUTHNOT.  
[Turning around] A kiss may ruin a human life,  
George Harford. I know that. I know that well.

S. Why did you do that?

J. What?

S. Why did you kiss me?

J. That is what the script said to do.

S. Liar.

J. How do you know?

S. I wrote this play.

J. Yes, well. It’s called creative license.

S. Was this kiss creative license too?

J. Perhaps. But the next won’t. I’m going off-script here.

S. Oh. (Softly) That is always so frightening.

J. Life can’t do without a little improvisation.

NOCTURNAL PHONOGRAPHIC TELEGRAMATIC CORPS.  
NIGHT LETTERGRAM

“In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.” Aldous Huxley, _Collected Essays_.

RECEIVED S to J #8 SENT Late Summer

DEAR MR. KIM

IS THIS YOUR ADDRESS? STOP I HAVE THREATENED EVER SOUL OF EVERY LIBRARY OF EVERY SAFE PlACE THAT WE BOTH KNOW OF TO ACQUIRE THIS INFORMATION TO NO AVAIL SO I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING IF THIS LETTER WILL EVER REACH YOU STOP THIS TELEGRAM WILL HAVE TO TRAVEL THROUGH WIRES THAT MAY BE SNIPPED, BURNT, RUSTED OR OTHERWISE SABOTAGED – AS OTHERWISE SABOTAGED IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN STOP

I UNDERSTAND YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND ARE STILL ALIVE AND RUMOURS OF YOUR PLANS FOR ADOPTION HAVE REACHED ME STOP I HOPE YOU PICK AN OLDER CHILD – A CHILD THAT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE YOU OR YOUR HUSBAND, BUT THAT SHARES BOTH OF YOUR WIT AND GOOD HEART, CHARM AND RESOURCEFULNESS, YOUR ROUND CHEEKS AND HIS ADMITTEDLY NICE DIMPLES, THAT WILL LEARN TO LOVE MUSIC AS MUCH AS YOU LOVE IT AND THAT WILL BE AS GOOD AT EVERYTHING AS YOU ARE BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL AND NEVERENDING HARD WORK STOP A CHILD THAT WILL SPEND MANY HAPPY MOMENTS GATHERED IN A LIGHTHOUSE FRESHLY PAINTED, STACKING UP BOOKS AND FILING PAPERS AWAY FOR THE COMFORT OF ONE FRIEND AND IN THE AID OF THE MISSION OF ANOTHER STOP AS WE ONCE DID WHEN YOU AND I WERE YOUNGER STOP

OR YOU MIGHT ADOPT A CHILD THAT IS PERFECTLY NORMAL, PERFECTLY CANDID, AND NOT MUCH TO SPEAK OF STOP THAT IS ALSO ALRIGHT STOP YOU KNOW HOW TO REACH ME IF THE BOTH OF YOU ARE EVER IN NEED STOP

YOU MUST FORGIVE ME FOR CONTACTING YOU ONE LAST TIME AFTER ALL THESE YEARS STOP I KNOW HOW DANGEROUS IT IS STOP BUT THERE’S SOMETHING YOU MUST KNOW STOP IT IS SOMETHING SO DANGEROUS AND SO TERRIBLE THAT I AM TAPPING THE MORSE CODE IN THIS TELEGRAM AS HARD AS I CAN STOP SO IT CAN BE PRINTED IN ENORMOUS FONT STOP I CAN ONLY PRAY THIS MESSAGE WON’T BREAK STOP THE DEVICE AND STOP THE TRANSMISSION STOP I CAN ONLY HOPE FOR THE BEST, JUST AS YOU HOPED FOR AN EAGLE TO ANSWER YOUR CALL SO MANY YEARS AGO STOP

THE MESSAGE IS AS FOLLOWS:

To: S.  
Regarding Recent Events As Noted By Several News Outlets Including This Very Lighthouse

You are a foolish man following a foolish dream. He has made his stance clear. Nothing but danger of the worst kind will expect you if you wish to pursue a man (now married, may I add) that wants nothing with you. Come back. We can find a way to heal from this together. Just come back. Please.

To: My Kind Editor  
Regarding His Concerns

Old friend, I am afraid I cannot do what you ask of me so please refrain from asking at all. I am well aware that my endeavors are futile, but when has my life been for anything but the pursuit of the hopeless? Of all the people in the world, I never thought it would be you who’d lack understanding. Have you never been in love?

THE DAILY PUNCTILIO, MONDAY UNKNOWN MONTH, YEAR OF THE OX

KIM MANSION TRAGICALLY BURNT DOWN

PARENTS DEAD

HEIR MISSING

PRESENT:

Hon. Judge CHOI  
In the Matter of the Adoption of  
A Child Whose First Name Is 

JEON JUNGKOOK  
File No. 4832543

ORDER OF INCORPORATION OF  
POST-ADOPTION CONTACT  
AGREEMENT WITH Happy Elf Children Agency

A Petition having been presented to this Court regarding the adoption of the above named child, and the Petition having included a surrender/consent to adopt signed by the following birth parent(s) [specify]: NOT APPLICABLE and by the requesting parent(s)

KIM NAMJOON and PARK JIMIN

before Judge CHOI MINHO at the FAMILY Court of SALISBURY District on 13/05/2-364 [THIRTEENTH OF APRIL OF THE YEAR OF THE DOG].

And the Court that approved the execution of the surrender having also approved the attached Post-adoption Contact Agreement signed and agreed to by the following witnesses

MIN YOONGI and KIM SEOKJIN

as being in the best interests of the child;

_To J,_

_When we met, my life began,  
Soon afterwards, yours ended._

S to J #4

To answer your questions:

Question One. Yes.

Question Two. There is no need, but I would like you to.

Question Three. I lied. I know you won’t.

Question Four. I carry with me every day you kissed me, but yes, I do remember that day underneath the stage just before the curtains closed. How could I forget the way your hair fell over your eyes, coloured an orange that was positively gaudy and yet impossibly darling. You leaned over and wished me luck and then pushed me aside to receive the award, and I went to sleep that night with the memory of your lips pressed against my cheek.

Question Five. We were so young.

Question Six. As far as I know.

Question Seven. Adoption.

Question Eight. “Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside your ribcage.”

Question Nine. I do love you. What else do you want to know? I love you and I always will and you better start making peace with the fact that as long as I live I will continue to love you and you will also love me even as you love him. I love you despite you leaving me, and I love you despite the 200-page book in which you wrote all of the reasons you were leaving me when a simple “I am no longer happy with you” would’ve done the job, and I would’ve loved you even if you had said that and I had believed you. I loved you when I died and you thought me dead and you went to that island in which I thought you dead and you started loving his summer and unloving me. I love you in the moments in which I agree with you that I shouldn’t love you and I love you even more in the moments we both agree that a world like that would never have a single chance of existing. I love you in the world that does exist, treacherous and full of terror and void of mercy and half-filled with hope and half-empty with cruelty. I love you as if I saw you every day and as if every day tried to keep the promise of letting me see you, though all three of us (you, me, the days) know this to be a futile endeavor. I love you from afar and I will admit this particular admission does cause me shame because the distance between us is a distance I have myself created but you must understand that I can hardly see you if I cannot have you. I also love you up close because even if I cannot bear to see you and not have you, less so can I bear to not have you and not see you as well. I love you as old memories love manifesting through light, and grand balls love ending in a sudden murder, and big fortunes love their owners being endlessly persecuted by terrible, dreadful men as they rot in the bottom of a bank. I love you as E. loves being _in_ and O. loves being dramatic and H. loves dancing and V loved me, once, for a fleeting moment. I love you as time loves moving forward and throwing everybody’s plans to waste. I love you as the summer breeze loves caressing the surface of the leaves, as the leaves love dancing in the sun, as the love between these two things loves enveloping the afternoon in their glow. I love you as my grandma loved gambling and as the gambling machines loved making her lose money. I love you as students love waking up to messages that say class is cancelled and as illness loves to claim the lives of the ones you love most. I love you as though there was no more day than tomorrow and no more threat than a paper cut. I love you as if arson didn’t exist and fire was only for roasting marshmallows in a bonfire with a crowd of children solving a mystery. I love you as you love the music when it takes over your body and the floor bends to your feet. I love you as though we were invincible and as though destiny had been on our side and as though I could’ve been the man that you wanted. I love you as though I had never shed a tear at night and as though there were no coffee stains in all of my late-night papers. I love you as though we might still be together if I tried enough, as if all this despair might be reversible, as if you would ever leave him, as if in any plane of this existence I could be with you. All-reaching, never-ending, undeniable. That is how I love you.

Question Ten. No.

Question Eleven. Regrettably.

Question Twelve. An older child, because they are so often forgotten by the system.

Question Thirteen. I wish.

DEAR SIR STOP

I NO LONGER KNOW STOP IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING ME STOP OR I AM FOLLOWING YOU STOP

Los que preparan guerras verdes,  
guerras de gas, guerras de _agua_ ,  
victorias _con sombreros_ ,  
se pondrían un traje puro  
y andarían con sus hermanos  
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.  
  
No se confunda lo que quiero  
con la inacción definitiva:  
la vida es sólo lo que se hace,  
_desearía yo todo_ con la muerte.  
  
Si no pudimos ser unánimes  
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,  
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,  
tal vez _el enorme vacío_ pueda  
interrumpir esta tristeza,  
este no entendernos jamás  
y amenazarnos con la muerte,  
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe  
cuando todo parece muerto  
y luego todo estaba vivo.  
  
Ahora contaré hasta doce  
y tú te callas y _te regresas_.

> Deciphered message:

_Fire, no survivors, I don’t want anything, a great silence, I will leave._

“As the world crumbled around him, both literally and figuratively, Jungkook crouched in the dirty floor and pulled out the single page of the Kim file that had been left behind from the burning Library of Records. He paid no mind, even as the beams above crackled and complained. His hand was trembling. There were more important things to think about. Page thirteen, for example, was one of such things.

Clipped at the top was a lone photograph and underneath it a single line of text, which is in itself altogether not too much, but it was enough to do what the shaking, creaking building couldn’t do. Jungkook fell to the ground, staring at the page and the photograph and the twenty-eight words printed in it as though he held in his hand the answer to a question he had never considered asking.

Four men stood in the middle of the photograph, clutching at each other as though it’d been taken half by surprise and half by previous accordance in front of a fountain Jungkook knew intimately. It was the red herring stationed in front of 667 Dark Avenue, where it had been for years before Jungkook had used it to travel outside the city. One of the men in the photograph was Jung Hoseok, whom Jungkook had not yet met, but who at the very moment waited for him at the steps of the burning hospital. Burying his laughter in Hoseok’s shoulder was a man taller, broad-shouldered and admittedly very handsome in the glimpse that could be caught of his merry face. He knew nothing of him. And then, just at the side, moving as though they had been caught off guard by the man’s laughter or the flash of the camera were Jungkook’s parents. He raised a finger carefully, to ghost over their surprised and handsome faces. He’d thought he would never see them again. But he might’ve been mistaken, for the line underneath the photograph read:

_Because of the evidence discussed on page seven, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor’s whereabouts are unknown.”_

Seokjin Kim, _The Hostile Hospital_ , “Chapter 6 ­— The Kim File.”

J to S #5

…Please, sir, I have to see you. Reports have reached me of the unlikely livelihood of a person I believe we both hold incredibly dear. The dearest, in fact. I have a thousand questions to ask and just a few comments to make. The only reason I leave your surroundings is so that whatever is pursuing you doesn’t catch me instead. I will catch the train out of the City and into that elusive seaside town that is no longer by the sea. I urge you to reconsider the distance you have chosen to put between us and ask you to lend me a single hand. After all these years, I find myself an orphan once again—an orphan leaving this letter here so that we may find each other.

P.S. Bring an umbrella. It will rain.

_Staged Poetry: Sonnets by Actors & Actresses_

Sonnet 18 (reversed)  
by J. Park

Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?  
Thou are as cold and no less harsh  
Much like the thought of a single boat stuck at bay  
Such as those found in the marsh

The sun himself is hard to find  
In the days since you’ve been in attendance  
A terrible fact we must bear in mind  
That nothing grows while you are in ascendance

And though I say this, I cannot forget  
the warmth and heart that winter brings  
And likewise could not begin to regret  
The moments with you when we felt like kings

My dearest darling, I beg, read through the chill of my spurning  
the plight of what once was my yearning

S. It’s fine. I think it’s fine.

J. A liar of the acutest kind.

S. Well, it’s perfectly good English! That’s something!

J. (Laughs) It seems I should not pursue this career path.

S. (Quietly) Please don’t, you might starve.

J. Would I? I thought you’d provide for me once we married.

S. Actors make much more money than writers do, though.

J. Is that so? Then I will provide for you, once we marry.

S. Jimin.

J. Yes?

S. I can’t wait until we’re married.

_To J,_

_Summer without you is as cold as winter.  
Winter without you is even colder._

To my Kind Editor,

You have read such words so many times your ears by now are sure to be ringing. _I_ feel obliged to offer a much delayed apology; your outstanding _will_ is the only thing that has kept us afloat. To _meet_ and work with you has been a delightful affair, but _you_ and I must part now. You can expect a package _at_ the unexpected left-hand turn of your nearest corridor containing _the_ last installment of the infamous reports I’ve made concerning a _lighthouse_ , an unsuspecting young man and a distant ringing bell. Please carry a carton of two-day old fries for the beaked messenger who has graciously accepted to engage in our affairs at risk of losing his lunch hour.

I regret to inform you this will be the last time I hear of you, even if the only time I have heard your voice has been through a paper bag in a water tank rapidly filling with water, so I have not technically talked to you already in a very long time. Surely I am not the only soul deeply saddened by this turn of events, but if I were, it would not be for nothing. Thank you for everything.

With all due respect,

Kim Seokjin

J to S #7

I saw you on the rickshaw and I know you caught a glimpse of me too or you would not have run so fast. What is it about me that causes you so much horror? Why won’t you answer my questions? Please, sir, I beg of you. I just want to find my father.

CITY LIBRARY NEWSLETTER  
_Offered to the subscribed readers of City Library_

Dearest Readers all over Town, this month of November brings much to see! Smack right after Halloween and just before Christmastime, this transitory month may not appear to have much to offer at first glance but thought that may apply to outdoor activities or outstanding events, it is not so as far as books go! Check out the list of new releases coming to our shelves in the next few weeks and revisit some of the old loves we’ve got for you at the end. Chip, chip!

 **November 1 – 12**  
_Dread and horror plague our halls!_

THE END by Seokjin Kim  
Hear, hear! The End is near! The last installment of _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ by quirky writer Seokjin Kim will arrive just in time to say goodbye to the dread of Halloween and welcome the usual dread of Jungkook’s unfortunate existence as we follow on the last of his adventures in Stain’d-by-the-Sea.

_To J,_

_Darling, dearest, dead._

Slicing a mango to share _among ourselves_ , your mother  
smiles at the grinning idiot _sitting there_ , plies me  
again with wine. You are not here, working late.  
Spiced plantains heaving in oil, the smell of beans

rising in generous shawls of steam: the grounds of trust  
are as nourishing as this, _and everything_ , and _nothing else_ —  
intricate bridges of breath, _open_ warmth, and time.  
When she takes my face into her hands as if she would

pare open a fruit, her ravaged voice _cutting_ through me,  
I see her _like Su told me sometime before_ , in all her raw  
unsparing beauty— _just after_ _Su met_  
_the ender of all joy_ , a man who shattered

what he touched, who left her eyes galled by all the  
other  
faces, like yours, she might have looked into with love.

> Deciphered message:

_between us, I’ve become, it seems, as fragile, bare, open, searing as he must have been once, long before he fell in love with your father,_

“He won’t come. You better stop waiting.”

The staircase creaked as Yoongi stopped at the last step, an awful, old sound that was nevertheless eclipsed by the ever-present breathing of the Clusterous Forest just outside the lighthouse. A few years ago, Yoongi had torn down the walls of the first floor so it could be occupied entirely for journalistic purposes, so that now the entire room was littered with recently printed newspapers and filing cabinets smack between couches and chairs. Only the kitchen had remained untouched, by Hoseok’s command. There he sat, drinking tea at the dinner table. The child was entrenched at the single window from where you could see the way to the lighthouse stretch down the hill. He’d been there for days.

“Yoongi,” warned Hoseok. His hair was red now, though it had been dark blue just a few days ago. At least that explained the colour of the sink. For a moment, Yoongi had been afraid.

Languidly, the boy extricated himself from the windowsill and joined Hoseok at the table. There had been a second cup set there since early morning. “That was a mean thing to say,” Jungkook muttered, reaching for the teapot.

“The truth is always hard to hear,” Yoongi said. There was no cup for him set, so he had to grab one from the only desk that was free from stacks of yet-to-file-away paper. It was his own and it was also under a window, though you could only see the tail-end of the road from that side. “I only want you to be prepared for disappointment.”

“Yoongi, this is a nice afternoon we’re spending together. There’s absolutely no need for you to be this despicable,” Hoseok chided, reaching out to pet Jungkook’s hair. The boy leaned into the touch and absentmindedly chewed on a piece of biscuit, forever absorbed in careful rumination. How he’d grown to be so like somebody he had only seen once was beyond any of the adults in the lighthouse.

“It is not despicable because I say it but because the action itself is. That is not on me,” Yoongi replied, dragging a chair away to sit into. The old wood creaked under his weight but it did so in tune with his own body.

“You could try and butter it up,” Jungkook said, as Yoongi slathered butter on his own biscuit.

Yoongi’s eyes softened and he sighed. His shoulders sagged, as though he was tired from carrying something for a very long time. “I just don’t want you to pine for a man that will never return. He didn’t come back for Hoseok, who is almost his brother; he wouldn’t even consider coming back for me, the oldest associate he has; and he is most certainly not going to come back for the adopted child of a man he both hates and loves with a passion few people can manage to understand. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Seokjin hates disappointing people but it is something that he does often.”

“That was a mean thing to say,” a new voice called out.

The three heads at the table snapped towards the opening door, where a tall, broad-shouldered man was making his way into the lighthouse. He took off his large trench coat and shoes to the sound of three chairs dragging against the tile and small, unbelieving gasps echoing in unison. He still had his hat on when he turned around, and the shadow of its wing covered half his face, but to all three men the smile that greeted them warmly was enough to cause chilling recognition.

“That’s what I said,” Jungkook muttered, eyes like saucers.

“You were always a sharp child,” he agreed affably. The man took off his hat and placed it on the upper hook of the coat hanger. Now that no shadow covered his face, there was also no shadow of doubt to who it was. They couldn’t hope to delude themselves any longer. His face was as handsome as all stories had described but nothing could’ve prepared Jungkook for the sheer sadness of his eyes.

“You’re here,” Yoongi scoffed incredulously, hands just barely shaking.

“Only to prove you wrong,” Seokjin said, smiling widely. “What’s the news, Yoongi?”

S to J #1

Dear Child,

I am sorry to say that this is the first and last letter of mine that will ever reach you, if not the first or last I will ever write to you. I am also sorry that it catches you off-guard like this, and that it comes far too late to be of use. As you can see, I lead a life in which one is sorry for many things and helpful for nothing at all. This won’t be my last apology.

I loved your father when I was young, but not all at once and not since the very beginning. Mind you, I always liked him. He was always a splendid young man. A good actor, an even better singer. I was content only to watch him, for the longest of times. He and N. were always good at being in the spotlight, keeping the audience rapt in their performance in ways only few could. They were a formidable pair in more ways than one.

We were friends, all of us. All the people you’re thinking about now. Your parents. Your guardians. Y. H. Me. The man that chased you. Even some others that won’t come up in your head were also there, if perhaps just at the back. We had an unusual education and experiences like that have the unfortunate consequence of setting you apart from the world at large. Only those who share the knowledge we do will understand you, no matter how hard you try. And believe me, I did. They end up leaving you at the end. It’s othering.

Jimin understood me like no other. He was so quick, so graceful. So kind in his understanding. Every single time he told me he loved me back, I was taken aback by the grace that destiny had bestowed upon me. But, you see, we were doomed from the very beginning. I should’ve known. Our line of work makes love difficult. I went missing. For many months, I know your father worried about me. They declared me dead.

When I came back, I could not blame him for moving on. It’s what you do. But I was so angry. I felt as though I had been pulled out of the race just before I reached the finish line and, sitting miserably at the sidelines, held down by the hands of time and circumstance, watched as another man crossed happily into the arms of the only person I’ve ever considered mine.

This will be a hard thing to read.

It was a hard thing to experience.

Your father wrote me, later, a very lengthy book in which he carefully exposed every reason he could not marry me. He never got the hang of writing very well but I read it in one night. I annex a copy just in case it serves any purpose for you. I already know it well. The ring which I received in the package with that book I shall keep for myself. I hope you are not angry.

I am sorry I cannot answer more of your questions.

With all due respect,  
Kim Seokjin

A Series of Unfortunate Events

BOOK the Last

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

by SEOKJIN KIM

_Verse-nous ton po_ _ison pour qu'il nous réconforte!_  
_Nous voulons, tant ce feu qui nous brûle le cerveau,_  
 _Plonger au fond du gouffre. Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?_  
 _Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!_

_For J,_

_We are all dead ends. Particularly you._

At the end of the road down the hill from the lighthouse was the edge of town and at the edge of town started the Clusterous Forest. Many years ago, at the edge of town one could only find the sea but the inhabitants of Stain’d-by-the-Sea had to pump the water out and into a nearby city—that was nevertheless not the City—and behind had remained the Clusterous Forest. The abundant marine foliage that had been underwater decided it would thrive instead of dying, and thus it had adapted over time into a mass of shrubbery that twisted and danced around each other as though the only thing that kept it up and running was the memory of what it once had been. It would be convenient if all of us had this ability.

I only tell you this strange detail because such was the sight that received me as I walked the road down the hill from the lighthouse to reach the edge of town. The gravel crackling under my shoes joined the silent scream of the forest, as I went farther from the smell of deliciously buttery biscuits baking in the kitchen and closer to the stench of fish and salt. A few moments before, Jungkook had decided to take a while alongside the shore and I was there to speak with him. This was the last of my conversations with the inhabitants of the lighthouse and the one I had secretly been afraid of the most.

 _You must go, though. He has waited enough;_ Yoongi had said when he’d seen me hesitating at the threshold. _So I have_ , I replied. _So have you_ , I thought as well but I was not brave enough to say so. Yoongi seemed to have read it off my mind, as he often did, and pronounced his next words more carefully, so that they held more weight. _But you will continue waiting to the end of the days. You’re stubborn like that. The difference here is he doesn’t have to._

Jungkook was skipping rocks at the shore when I reached him. There was no water, so he could only throw the stone and watch it sink into the sand before he had to retrieve it and skip it again.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I am skipping rocks,” he said. “But there is no water, so I can only throw the stone and watch it sink into the sand before I have to retrieve it and skip it again.”

“Why are you doing that?” I asked again.

“Because the cycle of life is about doing pointless things over and over again until you’re dead,” he replied, throwing a rock.

Distantly, a siren started blaring. Soon, the sound began increasing, as though the ringing was a wave to replace the ones that had gone away. I thought this an opportune occasion to say, “Huh. I didn’t realize this was a sad occasion.”

Jungkook smirked and said words I was expecting to hear but that I hoped I wouldn’t have to. “The world is quiet here.”

Silently, I extended a hand and he handed me one of three rocks he had in his gloved hands. Silently, we skipped rocks. Silently, we picked them up after they sank into the sand.

“I thought I said to be careful with your ankles,” I admonished, though the action fit me ill. Jungkook, who was as kind as his parents had been and quickly outgrowing the age when one is able to be admonished, had the grace not to comment on it.

“Things just happen sometimes if you leave something unattended, even when you don’t want them to. That’s the risk of not being there,” Jungkook replied, very sadly. Sometimes, when people are very sad, the fitting thing to do is offer words of consolation and the promise of your continued assistance. Other times, when you are either the cause of their sadness, or cannot promise to remain at their side, or even worse, both of these things apply, the best thing you can do is shut up and pretend you have not noticed. So I skipped rocks and a few minutes later, Jungkook asked me, with eyes full of questions and a clearer voice than before, “Since you are here, I have something to inquire. For example, how do you know my parents? Was it you at the Last Safe Place? If you knew me for so long, why didn’t you approach me earlier? What is it that you do concretely? How can I contact you again? When do you plan on leaving?”

“After tea,” I replied, answering the last question. The reply to some, but not all, of his other question was nestled in the inside of my left pocket. “But I have something to give you before I do.”

Dear reader, I am afraid I cannot disclose what was inside the letter I gave Jeon Jungkook on that fateful day at the edge of a town that no longer exists, nor can I tell you which of the questions he asked me it answered. What I can say is that he took it from my hands with solemn eyes and that he read it often, well into his adult years, sometimes in a manner which was not entirely enough to make one single man less preoccupied. It sat in his nightstand, lodged into a curious book he had received from an even more curious man, for the rest of his adolescence and many years into his adulthood. Sometimes it moved into the bottom of a big backpack he carried as he hiked over the Himalayans in search for the library of a decidedly resourceful nun, or sown into the lining of a blazer as he effortlessly charmed the people at a party in which many attendants, if not all, were either trying to murder him or woo him. But it never left his side. It was one of the secrets he kept; of the few that I had given him and the lot he had begun collecting, a lot which inevitably had to grow as he did, and he guarded it zealously.

I admire his dedication. It will always be familiar.

**Author's Note:**

> List of works referenced or quoted in order of appearance:
> 
>   * _Entry for Not An Island_ , Gabriel Jesolowski
>   * _All The Wrong Questions (series)_ , Lemony Snicket
>   * _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ , Lemony Snicket
>   * _The Beatrice Letters_ , Lemony Snicket
>   * _À celle qui est trop gaie_ , Charles Baudelaire
>   * _A Woman of No Importance_ , Oscar Wilde
>   * _Unknown poem_ , E.E. Cummings
>   * _Sonnet 18_ , William Shakespeare
>   * _A Callarse_ , Pablo Neruda
>   * _On Pike Street_ , Suji Kwock Kim
>   * _Le Voyage_ , Charles Baudelaire
> 



End file.
